M1/M2 Internship Investigation of nitric oxide sources in forest ecosystems impacted by human activities

Laboratory: Center Energy and Environment

Supervisor: Sébastien DUSANTER

Workplace: IMT Nord Europe – Bourseul Campus at Douai (France)

Type of contract and duration: M1 or M2 Internship – 6 months

Context:

The public establishments belonging to IMT (Institut Mines-Télécom), are under the supervision of the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty, IMT Nord Europe has three main objectives: to provide our students with ethically responsible engineering practices, enabling them to solve 21st century issues, carry out our R&D activities leading to outstanding innovations and support territorial development through innovation and entrepreneurship. Ideally positioned at the heart of Europe, 1 hour away from Paris, 30 min from Brussels and 1h30 from London, IMT Nord Europe has strong ambitions to become a main actor in the current industrial transitions, digital and environmental, by combining education and research on engineering and digital technologies.

Located on two main campuses dedicated to research and education in Douai and Lille, IMT Nord Europe offers research facilities of almost 20,000m² in the following areas:

•             Digital science,

•             Energy and Environment,

•             Materials and Processes.

For more details, visit the School’s website: www.imt-nord-europe.fr/en/

The internship is within the Centre Energy and Environment (EE) and the thematic axis Observations, Sources, and Atmospheric Physico-Chemical Processes (OSPA). The OSPA group conducts research on environmental and energy topics. The Atmospheric Sciences team (SAGE) focuses its research on topics related to air quality and the impact of human activities on the composition of indoor and outdoor air. The research projects are based on fundamental and applied research and aim to improve the understanding of the physicochemical processes involved in the generation, transport and transformation of gaseous and particulate pollutants.

The atmosphere is undergoing significant changes due to the implementation of new anthropogenic emission regulations within a context of climate change. Forecasting changes in atmospheric composition is therefore highly uncertain, particularly in biogenic environments influenced by urban emissions. The ACROSS (xxxx) project aims at improving our understanding of how mixing urban and biogenic air masses impact atmospheric composition and reactivity. As part of ACROSS, an intensive measurement campaign was conducted during the summer of 2022, utilizing multiple observation platforms within the Paris region. One key observation site was located in the Rambouillet forest, southwest of Paris, an area occasionally exposed to pollution plumes from the capital.

At this forested site, the OSPA group deployed a large suite of state-of-the-art instruments to measure key atmospheric species, including Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), radical species (HO2 and RO2), nitrogen oxides (NO and NO2), and secondary aerosols (SOA and SIA). A particularly intriguing result was the daily observation, in the morning, of an unexpected peak of nitric oxide (NO) above the forest canopy. This finding challenges current understanding of NO sources in forested environments influenced by human activities and warrants further investigation to better understand this phenomenon.

Objectives: Identify and quantify contributions of the main sources of nitric oxide above the canopy of the Rambouillet forest using atmospheric observations collected during the ACROSS campaign.

Activities:

The internship will be carried out as follows:

1-     Familiarization with the ACROSS campaign dataset

The intern will perform a comprehensive descriptive analysis of the dataset on gaseous species collected at the Rambouillet site, focusing on VOCs, NOx, and radical species. This analysis will include the creation and interpretation of time series and the development of correlation plots plots to explore relationships and trends within the data.

2-     Analysis of the nitric oxide balance above the forest canopy

The next phase will focus on investigating the NO balance above the forest canopy by identifying and quantifying its various sources and sinks. This process will involve the application of a zero-dimensional (0-D) box model to construct a detailed budget and enhance our understanding of the underlying physicochemical processes.

Required Profile:

This internship is intended for an M1 or M2 student with a strong background in environmental sciences. Skills in analytical chemistry and atmospheric chemistry will be a valuable asset. This work requires a high level of rigor as well as strong writing and communication skills.

Conditions:

The internship is expected to start between March and April 2025 for a duration of 6 months.

Information and application methods:

For any information on the missions, please contact: Sébastien DUSANTER, Assistant Professor, sebastien.dusanter@imt-nord-europe.fr, 0327712623

For any administrative information, please contact the Human Resources Department: jobs@imt-nord-europe.fr

Deadline: 02/03/2025